Team Scores with Data Handoff

How the NFL's Baltimore Ravens are scoring points on the bottom line -- and improving security -- by outsourcing all of their data storage and management services.

When Hurricane Katrina bulldozed into the Gulf Coast in August 2005, its devastating repercussions were felt in many more places than Mississippi, Louisiana and the neighborhoods all across the country, where thousands of evacuees had to relocate.
Enterprise executives around the nation and the world winced at the destruction the storm brought to New Orleans and surrounding cities and towns and took it as a warning: A natural disaster like Katrina, an earthquake, a tsunami, a terrorist attack or other cataclysmic event could end a business in the twinkling of an eye if no workable backup plan is in place to keep the IT system running and the data safe and secure.

The National Football League's New Orleans Saints were a prime example. The teams home stadium, the Superdome, was severely damaged by the storm, with portions of the roof simply blown away.

Fortunately, the team had its business data backed up and archived at its home office, which was not seriously damaged. But had the hurricane destroyed the offices and knocked out the IT system, the team might have suffered more costly losses.
Next Page: Ravens get a makeover.

Chris Preimesberger was named Editor-in-Chief of Features & Analysis at eWEEK in November 2011. Previously he served eWEEK as Senior Writer, covering a range of IT sectors that include data center systems, cloud computing, storage, virtualization, green IT, e-discovery and IT governance. His blog, Storage Station, is considered a go-to information source. Chris won a national Folio Award for magazine writing in November 2011 for a cover story on Salesforce.com and CEO-founder Marc Benioff, and he has served as a judge for the SIIA Codie Awards since 2005. In previous IT journalism, Chris was a founding editor of both IT Manager's Journal and DevX.com and was managing editor of Software Development magazine. His diverse resume also includes: sportswriter for the Los Angeles Daily News, covering NCAA and NBA basketball, television critic for the Palo Alto Times Tribune, and Sports Information Director at Stanford University. He has served as a correspondent for The Associated Press, covering Stanford and NCAA tournament basketball, since 1983. He has covered a number of major events, including the 1984 Democratic National Convention, a Presidential press conference at the White House in 1993, the Emmy Awards (three times), two Rose Bowls, the Fiesta Bowl, several NCAA men's and women's basketball tournaments, a Formula One Grand Prix auto race, a heavyweight boxing championship bout (Ali vs. Spinks, 1978), and the 1985 Super Bowl. A 1975 graduate of Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif., Chris has won more than a dozen regional and national awards for his work. He and his wife, Rebecca, have four children and reside in Redwood City, Calif.Follow on Twitter: editingwhiz